SONNET XCVI.
Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less :
Thou mak’st faults graces that to thee resort.
As on the finger of a throned queen
The basest jewel will be well esteemid;
So are those errours that in thee are seen,
To traths translated, and for true things deem'd.
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
How many gazers might'st thou lead away,
If thou would'st use the strength of all thy state!
But do not so; I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

SONNET C.
WHERE art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power, to lend base subjects light?
Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, restive Muse, my love's sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make Time's spoils despised every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;
So thou prerent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.

a

SONNET CI.

SONNET XCVII.
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen?
What old December's bareness every where !
And yet this time remov'd was summer's time;
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease :
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or, if they sing, 't is with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

O TRUANT Muse; what shall be thy amends,
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd ?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends ;
So dost thou too, and therein dignify'd.
Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
Truth needs no colour, with his colour fird,
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:
But best is best, if nover intermir'd -
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so; for it lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb,
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

SONNET XCVIII.
from you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing;
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lilies white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

SONNET CII.
My love is strengthen'd, though moreweak in seem-
I love not less, though less the show appear: (ing;
That love is merchandis'd, whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish ev'ry where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops his pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burdens ev'ry bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight,
Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue,
Because I would not dull you with my song.

SONNET XCIX.

SONNET CIII. The forward violet thus did I cbide; [smells, Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth, If not from my love's breath? The purple pride That having such a scope to show her pride, Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells, The argument, all bare, is of more worth, In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd. Than when it hath my added praise beside. The lily I condemned for thy hand,

O blame me not if I no more can write!
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair : Look in your glass, and there appears a face
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,

That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
One blashing shame, another white despair; Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
A third, por red nor white, had stolen of both, Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath ; To mar the subject that before was well?
But for his theft, in pride of all his growth For to no other pass my verses tend,
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,
But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee. Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.

SONNET CIV.

SONNET CVIII. To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

What's in the brain that ink may character, For as you were, when first your eye I ey'd, Which hath not figurd to thee my true spirit ? Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold What 's new to speak, what new to register, Have from the forests shook three summers' pride; That may express my love, or thy dear merit? Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd, Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine, In process of the seasons have I seen,

I must each day say o'er the very same; Three April perfumes in three bot Junes burn'd, Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green. Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial band,

So that eternal love in love's fresh case Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd, Weighs not the dust and injury of age, So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d. But makes antiquity for aye his page; For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred, Finding the first conceit of love there bred, Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead. Where time and outward form would show it dead.

SONNET CV.

SONNET CIX. Let not my love be call'd idolatry,

O never say that I was false of heart, Nor my beloved as an idle show,

Though absence seem'd my fame to qualify, Since all alike my songs and praises be,

As easy might I from myself depart, To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: Kind is my love to day, to morrow kind,

That is my home of love: if I have rang'd, Still constant in a wondrous excellence;

Like him that travels, I return again ; Therefore my verse to constancy confin’d, Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd, One thing expressing, leaves out difference. So that myself bring water for my stain. Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,

Never believe, though in my nature reign'd Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words ; All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, And in this change is my invention spent,

That it could so preposterously be staind, Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords. To leave for nothing all thy sum of good; Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone, For nothing this wide universe I call, Which three, till now, never kept seat in one. Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

SONNET CVI.
WHEN in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now,
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing :
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

SONNET CX.
Alas, 't is true, I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view, [dear,
Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.
Now all is done, save what shall have no end :
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.
Then give me welcome, next my Heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

SONNET CVII.
Nor mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on tbings to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.
The mortal Moon hath her eclipse endurid,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

SONNET CXI.
O FOR my sake do you with fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
T'han public means, which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdu'd
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Pity me then, and wish I were rencw'd;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eyesell, 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

SONNET CXII.

SONNET CXVI.
Your love and pity doth the impression fill Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow; Admit impediments. Love is not love
For what care I who calls me well or ill,

Which alters when it alteration finds,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow? Or bends with the remover to remove :
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
To know my shames and praises from your tongue; That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,

It is the star to every wandering bark, (taken. That my steel'd sense or changes, right or wrong. Whose worth's unknown, although his height be In so profound abysm I throw all care

Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Of others' voices, that my adder's sense

Within his bending sickle's compass come; To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. You are so strongly in my purpose bred,

If this be errour, and upon me prov'd, That all the world besides methinks are dead. I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

SONNET CXIII.
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth lack;
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour, or deformed'st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.

SONNET CXVII.
Accuse me thus; that I have scanted all
Wherein I should your great deserts repay;
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time yoạr own dear purchas'd right;
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me furthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errours down,
And on just proof, surmise accumulate,
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate:
Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.

SONNET CXIV.

SONNET CXVIII.
Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
Prink up the monarcb's plague, this flattery, With eager compounds we our palate urge;
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true, As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
And that your love taught it this alcumy,

We sicken to sb'in sickness, when we purge; To make of monsters and things indigest,

Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble, To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding, Creating every bad a perfect best,

And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing. o't is the first; 't is flattery in my seeing, Thus policy in love, to anticipate And my great mind most kingly drinks it up: The ills that were not, grew to faults assured, Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, And brought to medicine a healthful state, And to his palate doth prepare the cup:

Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured. If it be poison’d, 't is the lesser sin

But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin. Drugs poison' him that so fell sick of you.

SONNET CXV.

SONNET CXIX. Those lines that I before have writ, do lie,

What potions have I drunk of Syren tears, Even those that said I could not love you dearer; Distil'd from limbecks foul as Hell within, Yet theo my judgment knew no reason why Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, My most full faine should afterwards burn clearer. Still losing when I saw myself to win! But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents What wretched errours hath my heart committed, Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings, Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never ! Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents, How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, Divert strong minds to the course of altering things; In the distraction of this madding fever! Alas! why, fearing of time's tyranny,

O benefit of ill! now I find true Might I not then say, now I love you best,

That better is by evil still made better; When I was certain o'er incertainty,

And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, Crowning the present, doubting of the rest ? Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. Love is a babe; then might I not say so,

So I return rebuk'd to my content, To give fall growth to that which still doth grow? And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent,

SONNET CXX.
That you were once unkind, befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or bammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by your's, you have pass'd a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.
O that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tenderd
The humble salve which wounded bosom fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransom your's, and your's must ransom me.

SONNET CXXIV.
If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for fortune's bastard be unfather'd,
As subject to time's love, or to time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gatherd,
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy, that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic, [showers.
That it not grows with heat, nor drowns with
To this I witness call the fools of time,
Which die for goodness, who have liv'd for crime.

SONNET CXXI.

SONNET CXXV.
T 18 better to be vile, than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being,

WERE it aught to me I bore the canopy,

With my extern thy outward honouring, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd

Or lay'd great bases for eternity, Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.

Which prove more short than waste or ruining? For why should others' false adulterate eyes

Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Give salutation to my sportive blood ?
Or on my frailtjes why are frailer spies,

Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, Which in their wills count bad what I think good? Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent ?

For compound sweet foregoing simple favour, No,-I am that I am; and they that level At my abuses, reckon up their own :

No;-let me be obsequious in thy heart, I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel; Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,

And take thou my oblation, poor but free, By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; But mutual render, only me for thee. Unless this general evil they maintain,

Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul, All men are bad and in their badness reign.

When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.

SONNET CXXII.
The gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full character'd with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
Or at the least so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies, thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee,
Were to import forgetfulness in me.

SONNET CXXVI.
( Thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, bour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st!
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure;
She may detain, but not still keep her treasure:
Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,
And her quietus is to render thee.

SONNET CXXIII.

SONNET CXXVII.
No! Time, thou shalt pot boast that I do change: In the old age black was not counted fair,
Thy pyramids built up with newer might

Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name ;
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

But now is black beauty's successive heir, They are but dressings of a former sight.

And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire For since each hand hath put on nature's power, What thou dost foist upon us that is old,

Fairing the foul with art's false-borrow'd face, And rather make them born to our desire,

Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy hour, Than think that we before have heard them told. But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace. Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, Not wondering at the present por the past; Her eyes so suited; and they mourners seem For thy records and what we see doth lie,

At such, who not born fair, no beauty lack, Made more or less by thy continual baste:

Slandering creation with a false esteem: This I do vow, and this shall ever be,

Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee. That every tongue says, beauty should look so.

SONNET CXXVIII.

SONNET CXXXII. How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st, Thing eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain; With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st Have put on black, and loving mourners be, The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap

And truly not the morning Sun of Heaven To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand! Doth half that glory to the sober west, To be so tickled, they would change their state As those two mourning eyes become thy face: And situation with those dancing chips,

O let it then as well beseem thy heart O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace, Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips. And suit thy pity like in every part. Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

Then will I swear beauty herself is black, Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

SONNET CXXIX.

SONNET CXXXIII. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan Is lust in action, and till action, lust

For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Is 't nut enough to torture me alone, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be ? Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight; Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, Past reason bunted; and no sooner had,

And my next self thou harder hast engross'd; Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,

Of him, myself, and thee, I am forsaken; On purpose laid to make the taker mad :

A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross'd. Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;

Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, Had, baving, and in quest to have, extreme; But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail; A bliss in proof,—and prov'd, a very woe; Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard; Before, a joy propos’d; behind, a dream: Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail: All this the world well knows; yet none knows well And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee, To shun the Heaven that leads men to this Hell. Perforce am tbine, and all that is in me

SONNET CXXX.

SONNET CXXXIV.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the Sun; So now I have confess'd that he is thine,
Coral is far more red than her lips' red :

And I myself am mortgag'd to thy will;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still:
I bave seen roses damask'd, red and white, But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

For thou art covetous, and he is kind;
And in some perfumes is there more delight He learn'd but, surety-like, to write for me,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
I love to hear her speak,-yet well I know The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound; Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use,
I grant I never saw a goddess go,-

And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground; So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
And yet, by Heaven, I think my love as rare Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me;
As any she bely'd with false compare.

He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

SONNET CXXXI.

SONNET CXXXV.
Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,

WHOEVER bath her wish, thou hast thy will,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; And will to boot, and will in over-plus;
For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart More than enough am I that vex thee still,
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold, Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Thy face bath not the pow'r to make love groan:

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
To say they err, I dare not be so bold,

Shall will in others seem right gracious, Although I swear it to myself alone.

And in my will no fair acceptance shine? And, to be sure that is not false I swear,

The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,

And in abundance addeth to his store; One on another's neck, do witness bear

So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place. One will of mine, to make thy large will more. Io nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds, Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill; And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds. Think all but one, and me in that one Will.